Valdez Is Coming

Crossing the pasture from Diego Luz’s place, Valdez saw the willows in the distance marking the arroyo. There had been some luck with him so far, coming in and going out, though he didn’t know Ta

When he talked to Ta

The sawed-off Remington was across his lap as he approached the willows and entered the cavern of shade formed by the hanging branches. Holding the Remington, he dismounted and stood still to listen. There was no sound in the trees. He moved along the bank of the arroyo, beyond the thick brush below, to a place where the bank slanted down in deep slashes to the dry bed. He worked his way down carefully. At the bottom, as he entered the brittlebush, he cocked the right barrel of the Remington.

The Erin woman sat where he had placed her. She did not hear him or look this way. The bandana covered the side of her face and pulled her long hair behind her shoulders, which sagged with the weariness of sitting here for nearly an hour. You hold her all night and tie her in the morning, he thought. You make love to her, but you’ve never said her name. Now she turned her head this way.

He saw the startled expression jump into her eyes. He moved toward her, watching her eyes, wide open; her head moved very slightly to the side and then her eyes moved in that direction. Off to the right of her or behind her. Valdez shifted his gaze to the rocks and deep brush.

He moved forward again, a half step, and a voice he recognized said, “That’s far enough!”

“Hey!” Valdez said. “Is that Mr. R. L. Davis?”

“Put down the scattergun and unfasten your belt.”

Valdez’s gaze shifted slightly. There. He could see the glint of the Winchester barrel in the brush and part of Davis’s hat. He was behind an outcropping of rock, looking out past the left side, which meant he would have to expose half of his body to fire from that place. If he’s right-handed, Valdez thought. He remembered Davis firing at the Lipan woman across the Maricopa pasture and he said to himself, Yes, he’s right-handed.

“You hear me? I said put it down!”

“Why don’t you come out?” Valdez said.

The sawed-off Remington was in his right hand, pointed down, but with his finger curled on the trigger. He looked at the brush and the edge of the rock outcropping, judging the distance. He imagined swinging the shotgun up and firing, deciding how high he would have to swing it. You get one time, Valdez thought. No more.

“I’m going to count to three,” R. L. Davis said.

“Listen,” Valdez called. “Why don’t you cut out this game and use your gun if you want to use it? What’re you hiding in the bushes for?”

“I’m warning you to put it down!”

“Come on, boy, use the gun. Hey, pretend I’m an Indian woman, you yellow-ass son of a bitch.”

There. His shoulder and the rifle barrel sliding higher on the outcropping, more of him in the brush, and Valdez swung up the Remington, squeezing his hand around the narrow neck and seeing the brush fly apart with the explosion.

“Hey, you still there?” He shifted the gun to his left hand and drew the Walker. There was a silence. He glanced at the woman, seeing her eyes on him, and away from her.

“I’m hit!” Davis called out.

“What do you expect?” Valdez said. “You want to play guns.”

“I’m bleeding!”

“Wipe it off and try again.”

Silence.

“Boy, I’m coming in for you. You ready?”

He saw Davis at the edge of the rock again, seeing him more clearly now with part of the brush torn away. Davis came out a little more, his left hand covering his ear and the side of his face.

“Don’t shoot. Listen to me, don’t.”

“The first one was for Diego,” Valdez said. “The next one’s from me. I owe you something.”

“I didn’t leave you, did I? I didn’t let you die. I could’ve, but I didn’t.”

“Pick up your gun.”

“Listen, I cut you loose!”

Valdez paused, letting the silence come over the clearing. He heard another sound, far away, off behind him, but his gaze held on Davis.

“Say it again.”

“After I pushed you over. That night I come back and cut you loose, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t see you that night.”

“Well, who do you think did it?”

His gaze dropped to the woman, to her eyes looking at him above the bandana. He heard the sound again and knew it was a horse approaching, coming fast up the arroyo.

“I left you my canteen. I can prove it’s mine, it’s got my initials scratched in the tin part, inside.”

Valdez raised his Walker to shut him up and motion him out of the brush. Davis started out, then stopped. He could hear the horse.

“Come on,” Valdez hissed.

But Davis hesitated. The sound was louder down the arroyo, rumbling toward them. Davis waited another moment then yelled out, “He’s in here!” throwing himself behind the outcropping. “Get him! He’s in here!”

Valdez reached the woman and pushed her over. He turned, moving crouched through the brittlebush, at the edge of it now, and stepping out of it as the first rider came at him from thirty yards away, drawing his revolver as he saw Valdez and the barrels of the Remington, then seeing nothing as the ten-bore charge rocked him from the saddle. The second rider was down the arroyo coming fast, low in the saddle and spurring his horse, his handgun already drawn, firing it from the off side of his horse. Valdez raised the Walker. He thumbed the hammer and fired and thumbed and fired and saw the horse buckle and roll, the rider stiff, with his arms outstretched in the air for a split moment, and Valdez shot him twice before he hit the ground. The horse was on its side, pawing with its forelegs, trying to rise. Valdez looked down the arroyo, waiting, then stepped to the horse and shot it through the head. He walked over to the man, whose death’s head face looked up at him with sunken mouth and open eyes.

“I hope you’re one of them Diego wanted,” Valdez said. He turned toward the yellow brittlebush, loading the Remington.

“Where was he?” the segundo asked.

“He must have been in them bushes and fired on them as they come by,” the rider said. “I was back a piece, up on the west side looking for his sign. When I heard the gunfire I lit up this way and they was coming out of the draw.”

The segundo held up his hand. “Wait. You don’t want to tell it so many times.” He squinted under his straw hat brim toward Ta

Ta

“This man,” the segundo said, “is one of the four we left.”

“You left,” Ta

“I left. He says they went south looking for a sign of him. Then after a while the piss-ant you hired, something Davis, he come back this way.”

“Let him tell it,” Ta